Canon 1Ds3 review: No revolution, just useful evolution.

Canon's flagship is the do-it-all dSLR.

You want to make the best all-round dSLR? Just spec a Canon 1Ds III: Start with the tough weather-sealed Canon 1DIII photojournalist camera, and bump the sensor to full frame 21Mp so fashion and advertising shooters are happy. Now lever in a gorgeous huge and bright finder, add some far from center focus points, and enlarge the chimp screen to cope with liveview composition and focus. .

Now you have a nice up to date photo tool, with some spiffy improvements on the old battlehorse 1DsII: A frame rate rushed to 4fps, power-on and power-off sensor-clean, a lithium powerpack. This 1DsIII is a real man's camera, mucho muchacho! But do top specs really a winning pro camera make ?

I shot a quick studio test of the 1Ds3 a couple of weeks ago and took a CPS production loaner out on a weekend spin. With my own heavy Mammy —a 39MP Phase One/Mamiya 645 combo as comparison material in both cases.

In the field the new Canon wins on toughness and speed. No coddling is necessary. Batteries seem to last forever. Focus is so snappy. The camera's sheer willingness to take pictures astonishes. The finder is beautiful, and new offset focus points allow AF angle shots heretofore impossible with none of that hold and recompose blur.

In-use control ergonomics are improved, but not perfect. The back screen is adequate, but not up to today's photo-album compacts. Traditional EOS-1 controls have been refined, with single-button access to the important settings like ISO and drive mode. Unfortunately, focus-point selection is still a somewhat kludgy process, at least with the camera's default settings. Is focus select really so hard, or is there some trick which I failed to notice ?

As regards image quality, skin tone is decent, the "plastic wrap" effect of the 1Ds2 has been —mostly— corrected. Highlights don't blow out so easily, although the meter tends to overexpose. As we all know, noise is not a Canon problem. This revision of Canon's flagship is definitely good enough for any and all location work. Just point the thing and it'll get you an image. A hungry camera.

Yet, when pitted against the slow, lumbering Mamiya, the Canon wins spectacularly on speed and handling but cannot quite draw even on quality. The Mamiya's AF is at least as precise and rather often sharper on model's eyes than Canon's. Shooting at lower ISO allows one to get the most creamy color from the back, a file quality the SLR can't quite match. The digital back's CCD files will bend without breaking in Photoshop color adjustment, while Canon's CMOS files can only be pushed around within definite limits.

And then, yes, there is resolution and detail. Size does matter. The Phase back has twice as many pixels as the Canon, and the back's pixels are at least as good as the dSLR's. Also, my 39 Megapixel P45+ has neither anti-alias filter nor microlenses to blur the light falling on the sensor. The difference does show up in landscape images, and portraits, even handheld.

Whether shooting with more than 21Mp is necessary for real-world photography, or whether a fast handy camera beats out a heavy hitter, is something I'll leave for my readers to decide. But I'm sure that in few couple years Canon's marketing department will argue that 40 Mp is significantly better than 21 Mp. As it stands, the Canon is at least two generations behind the Phase in resolution, and, I'd say one generation in pixel quality. CMOS will catch up with CCD technology for sheer pixel by pixel quality, it'll happen in due course but it's not quite there yet.

To sum it up, Canon's 1DS3 body is a worthwhile refinement of the 1Ds2. With a redesigned viewfinder and AF system, it will work superbly in the studio and on location. This tough all-purpose camera will be the main tool for lots of pro shooters, even though prosumers will wait for the other shoe to drop: The cheaper and lighter 5DII should arrive before Photokina.

As for me, on days when the Mamiya's slowness is intolerable, I'll dig out my original 1Ds - still a masterpiece.

Edmund Ronald

Thin, light and tough - MacBook Air — A Design Masterpiece

With the iridescent, thin and lightweight Macbook Air, Apple has revisited and significantly improved the clamshell notebook design, morphing the lower case into a rigid exo-skeleton; this is going to be in all the design books and the MOMA as a textbook case of form subtending and assisting function.

Notebook computers have —until now— been plagued by the vulnerability of their internals to damage from warping. The bottom shell of the Macbook Air is curved, shaped like a ship hull locked to an inset keyboard "deck". This assembled lower shell seems mechanically rigid and warp-proof in a way I've never seen before in a notebook. The lid shell remains flexible but it is now sealed against the lower shell by a plastic lip when closed.

Apple's MagSafe power connector has also been revved for this design iteration, with the power cable running ninety degrees to the contacts. The cable run is thus protected by the curved side of the case. The magnets that allow the cable to disconnect if pulled also provide soft connection and disconnection during regular use — power connector damage is recognized as the main cause of notebook failure.

Nothing is quite perfect. My Macbook Air's fans are noisy, and the mouse button doesn't work as well as it should. The screen is not intended for image editing. There's no firewire. The battery should last longer. But this machine is not only light enough for carrying around, it's tough enough to take the bumps. Oh, and did I say it looks good ?

Edmund Ronald